A Post Newport Thanksgiving
by Helen C
Summary: Written for the Fourth Annual OC Sentence Fiction Challenge. Sheelock requested For the first time since they had moved to Berkeley the Cohens plus 1 were all together, so before Kirsten went to bed she checked on all her sleeping children.


**Title :** A Post-Newport Thanksgiving

**Author :** Helen C.

**Rating :** G

**Summary :** Written for the _Fourth Annual OC Sentence Fiction Challenge_. Sheelock requested "For the first time since they had moved to Berkeley the Cohens plus 1 were all together, so before Kirsten went to bed she checked on all her sleeping children."

**Disclaimer : **The characters and the universe were created and are owned by Josh Schwartz. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**AN.** Many thanks to joey51 for beta'ing this. I couldn't help some post-beta'ing tinkering; all remaining mistakes are mine.

And while we're doing the Oscars thing, huge thanks to ctoan as well, for organizing the challenge.

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**A Post-Newport Thanksgiving**

Helen C.

For the first time since they had moved to Berkeley, the whole family was under the same roof for the night. So, before Kirsten went to bed, she checked on all her children.

It wasn't so often that they were all together, and it would grow increasingly rare as time went by, so she intended to make the most of it whenever she could—it didn't matter that Sophie wouldn't even be aware of it, or that the two boys were now men who tended to balk when she went motherly on them.

She started with Sophie; her daughter was fast asleep in her crib, after a difficult evening spent fussing and crying. She wasn't used to so much noise and animation around her, and the disturbance in her routine had hit her hard. But Thanksgiving was upon them, this was Seth's first night home since he had left for the East Coast, and there had been a lot of catching up to do.

Sophie was a treasure—even more precious because Kirsten had almost lost her during the earthquake in Newport. She knew her daughter wasn't fragile; she had to remind herself that being overprotective wouldn't do Sophie any good in the long run, but she couldn't help it. She was still scared when she thought about these few hours wondering if she was going to lose her baby. She just hoped she would never have to go through anything like that again.

Kirsten took a moment to straighten the blankets and to make sure the baby monitor was working, then stood, watching her daughter. With the years, she had forgotten how small and vulnerable babies looked. Seth had become a man almost without her noticing, it seemed. One day, she had woken up, and her first child had been ready to make his own life. Now that she had Sophie, she remembered how Seth had been as a baby—inquisitive, always eager to see everything, always determined to get people's attention. In that regard, he hadn't changed.

He had also been a loner—an only child, used to keeping to himself, and developing tastes that most of his peers didn't share. He had spent too much time feeling lonely, and if she wanted to be honest with herself, she hadn't known how to deal with that. She had always been very social; she had always had lots of friends around, and had enjoyed it. She hadn't been quite sure what to make of her son, and she wished now that she had dealt with the situation better.

And while she was at it, she wished she knew how Ryan had been at that age. Had he already been as quiet as he was when they met him, or had he learned that over the years? Had he once been as talkative and full of life as Seth, or had he been an introverted child when he was little? She tried not to dwell on the past, especially not on Ryan's past. He had never confided the details to her, and probably not to Sandy either, but the thought of a vulnerable child depending on Dawn was enough to make her skin crawl.

Had Dawn done her best to make sure her children felt loved, safe, cherished? Kirsten hoped so, but she doubted it.

At least Sophie wouldn't go through anything like that. Sophie was less serious than Seth used to be, even at that age. Sophie had two brothers who doted on her, who would take care of her and teach her to be herself and to love herself.

Shaking the thoughts, she gave Sophie one last look, making sure everything was all right before moving on to the next room.

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Even if she hadn't know which boy had taken which room, she would have been able to guess. Seth's room was messy as ever—comics strewed all over the floor, clothes balled together in the corners and a computer that was still running, despite the fact that he was sleeping—waiting for a message from Summer, no doubt.

Seth had only been back for a few hours, and it already looked like he had lived in this room for months—like he had never left home at all. In contrast, even though Ryan often slept over here on the weekend, his room was as tidy as the pool house had always been—his clothes carefully folded, his books lined up on the bookcases, his bed made. The only sign that he was an overworked student was his desk, which very much looked like Seth's, with half-written papers and open books and pencils haphazardly piled all over the available space.

She smiled as she spotted some of the drawings Seth was working on—another comic book character. At the thought that her son would chastise her for calling graphic novels, comics, her smile widened.

He had spent the evening talking at an impressive speed, even for himself. Sandy had barely been able to get two words in edgewise. Kirsten and Ryan hadn't even tried. They had just listened as Seth described his room ("Of course, Ryan, you saw it. What did you think? Bigger than the one you have in Berkeley? No? Ah, well, no matter."), his classes, ("Oh, did you know that the graphic design professor looked over my project?"), and the way Summer was driving him insane, and how his life rocked.

Kirsten was glad that he was enjoying himself in College, but she missed him—more so than she had expected. He called every other day, he emailed them, but things weren't the same without him around. Seth had a unique way of being the focus of everyone's attention, to defuse a tense situation with a joke, to tease and cheer people up without even trying.

She watched him carefully, trying to detect changes on his face, but couldn't spot anything obvious. He seemed more at peace somehow. She didn't doubt that he was finding himself, away from a town he had never liked, away from the shadow of his family. Some part of her bemoaned the loss of what Seth had been, but mostly, she was impatient to get to know whoever he would become.

She didn't doubt that he would be a good man, whatever he ended up doing with his life. She could still remember how proud she had felt after the earthquake, that he had come through for Ryan in such a difficult situation despite the fact that he must have been scared to death. Lord knew she had been, and not just because the earthquake had been scary, but because they had been mostly cut off from one another, and Seth hadn't been prepared to deal with such emergencies.

Part of her regretted that he'd had to learn the hard way how to take care of others, but she was no less proud that he had.

Seth mumbled and shifted over in his bed, so Kirsten retreated, careful not to make any noise. He was still enough of a teenager to be embarrassed if he caught her checking on him, and he would wake up as soon as Summer emailed him anyway. He needed to get some sleep in the meantime, and she had one last kid to check on before she could do the same.

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She hesitated at Ryan's door, when she saw the light filtering out in the hallway through the half-open door. Ryan had a huge project to work on during the holiday, and he was probably busy figuring it out.

She didn't want to interrupt, didn't want to distract him, but some part of her couldn't resist making sure he was all right. Remembering the earthquake in Sophie's room had driven her thoughts back to Ryan. They had almost lost him as well that night. Without Seth, Julie and Frank, there was a possibility that Ryan wouldn't have gotten the help he needed in time. The thought was too frightening to dwell on and she shivered despite herself. Ryan was fine, she reminded herself. He was safe, he was doing well in College, he was as happy as she could remember ever seeing him.

She heard his voice, quietly calling, "I know you're here." She smiled sheepishly and stepped into the room, pushing the door open all the way.

"I'm sorry," she said, noticing the books he was studying with a frown. "I didn't mean to bother you."

He looked up at her, blinking tiredly. "It's okay. I was about to call it a night." He shrugged. "I can't read anymore."

"I know the feeling," she replied, thinking back about those horrible months back in College, spent studying as quickly as possible, trying to retain everything and yet just enough to pass the exams. It was a necessary evil, sure, but that didn't mean anyone had to like it.

"Making the rounds?" Ryan asked, smiling at her.

"I just wanted to make sure that everyone was settled for the night."

He nodded and got to his feet, stretching. "Full house," he said.

"It'll be even fuller tomorrow, when the Nana arrives," she predicted.

At least since the move to Berkeley, the woman had stopped treating Kirsten like the rich WASP she had never felt like. That was a little something. And it would be good to have her, even if it meant that Sandy would probably be stressed by her presence.

"Yeah." Ryan bit back a yawn, his eyes watering.

"I'll leave you alone."

He nodded and padded to the bed, the action reminding her of how far they had come since the first awkward days in Newport. He trusted her, now, and she finally felt like she earned that trust—they had spent a lot of time together, talking about his classes or his assignments, in the last few months. She had never really realized how often Seth acted as a buffer between them until she actually got to spend time alone with Ryan.

She finally felt like she was getting to know him—not the teenager she had seen in Newport, always trying so hard to please everyone but himself, but the man he was quickly becoming, finally enjoying his life.

There wasn't much left of the scared, lonely, angry teenager he had once been. He seemed to have finally found his place in the Cohen family. Kirsten didn't know when it had happened, but when she took the time to think about it, she could see that it had, somewhere along the way.

Ryan lay down, burying under the covers, and she reached out to squeeze his shoulder. "Good night," she said.

"'Night," he replied, his voice already drowsy.

She withdrew quietly, switching off the light behind her, and closed the door so that Sophie wouldn't wake him when she started crying in the middle of the night.

Confident that all her kids were safe for the night, she made her way to her room, finally ready to join the rest of her family in sleep.

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end 


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